Another one down

I’m happy to see that 2010 is winding to a close. It’s one of those—many—years I’d really like to forget. It’s hard to find much about it that’s worth keeping.

But perhaps I’m approaching this from the wrong direction. Maybe what I should be thinking about are the lessons I learned this year.

I learned that I should not try to override my core feelings, what you might call my instincts. Two and a half years ago, at my first interview for the job that took me to Seattle, I knew the hiring manager was crap at communication and that it would be damned near impossible to work for her. I was so besotted with how quickly a Fortune 50 company moved to hire me, I completely ignored that sense that it was not really right for me. Lesson: if there’s a Voice telling you something’s really, really wrong, listen to it.

I also learned that, if something’s innately wrong for me, no amount of effort is going to make it right. Lesson: square peg, round hole—just not going to work.

I learned that there are some locations that really wear on me. I knew that DC was as far South as I ever want to get (and I’ve lived in North Carolina), but I bought into the whole Seattle-is-cool crap. Lesson: I should have been more diligent about due diligence.

I learned that Fortune 50 companies can still have divisions that are dysfunctional, unprofitable and completely lacking in sense. And I do not thrive in such an environment. Lesson: pay attention when an interviewer describes the place as “like a startup with money.”

I learned that my self-confidence is much more fragile than I’d realized before, and that I need to figure out how to strengthen it. Lesson: like putting on weight and taking it off, letting a situation erode self-confidence is a lot easier than rebuilding it after it’s gone.

I learned that people I love can be taken away from me at a moment’s notice and that it’s a lot better to keep in touch with them no matter how miserable I feel about my life than to disappear into silence and then find out I’ll never be able to speak with him or her again. Lesson: being a friend means being there, regardless of what I have to offer at the moment.

I learned that a friend undergoing chemotherapy can look absolutely gorgeous when I do get a chance to see her. And that hearing her laugh at something I said is the best possible Christmas gift. Lesson: sometimes I get a reprieve at being a friend.

I learned that yoga does actually make me feel better. Lesson: some things just seem whacky until you actually try them.

So—assuming I can apply these lessons—2010 wasn’t a complete waste.

Customer service

While in Palm Springs I made the obligatory trip to Bristol Farms to get ingredients for two of the dinners my sister and I cooked.

I’ve been a BF fan since the 80s, when I lived a mile away from their South Pasadena store. You could get things there, like chayote or farro, that you couldn’t find at any other super market. A couple of years ago I picked up orange and lemon bitters there to take back to Virginia. It’s definitely upscale, but not as OTT as some places.

On this trip I had occasion to use the ladies room and saw something I’ve never encountered before:

I didn’t put it to the test by flipping the switch. I wonder how many false alarms they get on that?

Back to the Bay

The drive back to the Bay Area from Palm Springs was much less eventful than the one down. Nothing but sunshine and semis, pretty much.

At least I could see the countryside—California’s central valley is a vortex for the state’s huge agricultural business. I passed orchards, vineyards and pasturelands.

There was also what I took to be an industrial-strength feedlot for cattle, which made me think (again) that the raising of animals for food on that scale isn’t a particularly good thing. There were thousands of cows there in corrals that went on beyond the horizon. And the stench went on for miles.

It’s interesting to me that to get from the South Bay to I-5 (the primary north-south superhighway) you have to make a jog from US 101 over to the valley, and 20 miles of that is on a two-lane road going through Gilroy.

That means that you’re at the mercy of HGVs, Sunday drivers, and local farm trucks, going 35-45 mph. Kind of throws your trip into slow motion. And you’d think that with the number of tractor-trailers making that joggle, someone would have built a better way.

I suppose it’s such a small portion of the overall trip that I shouldn’t cavil about it. It just seems so 1950s in a state that has always touted itself as a bellwether.

This'll cut down on regifting...

This being Boxing Day, it seems appropriate to find out that Amazon has received a patent for an application that will allow recipients of gifts bought through the online retailer to swap them for something more desirable before they’re actually shipped.

If I understand this correctly, it would allow a user to register his/her standards (for want of a better term) for receiving items, either by type or by sender. This goes beyond the current wish list that you can post online letting the world & his wife know you’d really, really like an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle; a Tickle-Me Elmo; & two-carat FL princess-cut platinum-set stud earrings. Instead it allows you to instruct the greater Amazon marketplace that you won’t accept cubic zirconiums from anyone, or anything at all from Uncle Fred. That being the case, if Amazon detects any purchases of CZs (or anything from Uncle Fred) headed your way, it’ll alert you & allow you to convert whatever it is to something you’d prefer. Perhaps, in the case of the CZ, a Tickle-Me Elmo.

& it won’t notify the sender that you’ve made the swap.

(Amazon’s not doing this to make you happy, BTW. They’re doing it because it costs them money every time a piece of merchandise is returned & they’re looking to eliminate the cut into their profit margin.)

Now, I’ve been on the receiving end of some pretty ghastly presents, & I well know that some people just don’t have the gift for picking out the right gifts. But even so, I’m not sure I really like the idea of recipients essentially cutting the heart out of the concept of giving.

& if you can’t man up enough to explain to Uncle Fred that, while you really appreciate him sending you that very festive can of reindeer meat, you’ve been a vegan since you were 12 & are just crushed that you can’t enjoy his gift to the extent his thoughtfulness merits—then I’m not sure you deserve anything beyond a holiday card.

But I’m sure that most people will look upon this as a giant leap forward for raking in as much loot as possible with the least amount of ancillary trouble that accepting someone’s gift involves.

& since the Amazon patent includes the option of having the system send a thank-you note for the original gift, you’re off the hook for any display of civility at all in the transaction.

25 December

It’s a quiet morning looking over the Palm Springs valley. Wind blowing away the wisps of sunrise-pink clouds & rustling the palm fronds, preparing for another temperate day.

My sister’s dog has just got up, ready for a brisk morning walk, then breakfast, then a hike, then a nap & then a walk.

Happy Christmas to all. I hope your day is as peaceful as this.

Not exactly madeleines

On my way down to the Springs Wednesday I stopped off in Pasadena to get lunch at a dive I used to frequent near Cal Tech. Sadly, the place is looking a little dog-eared, and I wish I hadn’t gone.

It’s never been pretentious—only 21 places at the Formica counter, three deuces and two four-tops for groups. But there are only about seven of the swivel stools left; the rest of the seats are a mish-mash of chairs that look they came from garage sales. And I don’t think anything has been invested in the facilities for at least 15 years. (Certainly the ladies room is teetering on the edge of not being up to code.)

The burger was really not very good and  at $6.75, grotesquely over-priced. And the pie crust didn’t seem as flaky as back in the day. I suppose that’s just me being a grumpy old stick-in-the-mud, but I was truly disappointed.

Back in said day, a couple owned and ran the joint: he flipped the burgers and she baked the pies. The waitresses made coffee in vacuum brewers (the only place I’ve ever seen them in use), and the clientele was a mix of South Lake Avenue business types, Techies and older, low-income neighbors. Now South Lake is all chain stores (a Macy’s in the old Bullock’s building) and the neighborhood has no one with an income below $250K. Only the Techies are constant.

Sometime in the late 70s or early 80s the kid who’d been working the grill with the old man took over and he’s run it ever since. He did some empire building—opening a second restaurant in Arcadia and, for a while, one in Northern California. They even had tee-shirts. Now it’s just the original one, and I didn’t see any sign of the owner.

The menu (on actual menu cards, in addition to the listing on the wall) includes fruit bowls and strip steaks, which I suppose appeals to the millennials. And there’s even beer and  wine, which is just wrong, wrong, wrong.

Plus, it’s been discovered by the New York Times, which might explain some of the quality issues.

At least there’s no Wi-Fi. Yet.

Over the rivers

I’m in (finally) sunny Palm Springs for the holiday. It was quite the adventure getting here.

I’d thought about flying, but there are no non-stop flights from San José airport to Palm Springs (Alaska Air would have required me to fly up to Seattle and then down to the Springs, which I thought was just salt on old wounds), so I’d have had to fly out of SFO. When I calculated the time it would take to drive to the airport, park, shuttle, get through security, hope the flight left on time (as if) and then drive from the airport to my sister's place, it came to about six hours.

It’s an eight-hour drive.

Plus, no danger of getting felt up by THS. And I could bring a couple of bottles of sparkling wine with me without worrying about it exploding in the checked luggage.

So, there was a plan. But then The Storm came.

Southern California has been hit with several days and many inches of rain, and yesterday was pretty bad. (Not by, say, monsoon standards, but for SoCal, it was bad.)

It didn’t get dodgy until the Tejon Pass through the Tehachapais, when making out cars in front of you became problematic. And it was like that in spurts all the way down to San Bernardino County.

(This isn’t the worst rain I’ve driven through; that honor goes to a stretch of I-10 between Houston and Lafayette, La., when you couldn’t see the front of your car’s hood, much less the vehicle ahead of you. But at least then people didn’t continue driving at speed.)

The situation wasn’t helped by my sat-nav system telling me to go via the 71, 60 and I-215 freeways instead of out the 210.

But I eventually got here, much relieved to be out of the weather and the traffic. There’s no place in SoCal that’s not completely chockers with cars, semis and RVs.

The weather cleared up overnight and today it was warm enough for me to hop around town in short sleeves. (Although a considerable portion of this area was subject to flooding over the past day or so and today many roads are still closed. Those that aren’t have swathes of silt & rocks that mark where mobile lakes were yesterday.)

I’m really glad for the break and looking forward to the activities my sister and I have planned. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to visit my BFF, as well. That would be worth any drive.

Recruiters 6

My latest bizarre recruiting experience: early last month I was contacted by yet another job-shop recruiter for a contract product marketing manager gig.

We had a go-around about the rate—it’s low & I said I’d consider it. She wanted me to guarantee that if the job were offered at that rate I’d take it. (& keep in mind that it’s not the client paying the rate, it’s the job-shop. They always tell you the client won’t pay the going rate, but it’s all down to what they want to fork out.)

Then she wanted me to sign a blanket authorization form saying her company could represent me exclusively to any position with the client, in this case, Symantec. I refused. I told her the form had to be specific to this requisition only. After a bunch of blather, she finally reworded it & I signed it.

Then nothing until this past Tuesday when she called me to congratulate me on being chosen (her words) for a phone screening by the hiring manager. By way of “prep” for this exciting event she sent me the same JD I already had, a link to the Symantec corporate site (in case I’m too dull-witted to find it on my own) & the name of the hiring manager. No information on the particular group, which of Symantec’s 12,843 products they support, into which industries; what their needs are, etc.

Now, when I looked him up on LinkedIn, imagine my surprise to find that his title is product marketing specialist, & he has 18 whole months of corporate experience, having graduated from Northwestern last year.

I queried her about this; took her a full day to get back to me all flustered to know what my concerns were. Uh, how about, how can someone with no experience manage someone who’s required to have a minimum of eight years of tech marketing? This woman was completely clueless. She’s not spoken with this guy, but she insisted he is the HM.

Well, then I asked her questions about the group, products, etc. & she knew nothing beyond the JD, kept assuring me that if I just address those requirements I’ll be in.

So when I finally took the call from Skippy on Thursday it was clear he is just out of school. He didn’t know enough about product marketing to ask me any questions about what I’ve done. He had me run through my résumé (& is so innocent of marketing expertise I could have told him I was training monkeys to form a string quartet & then spent a few years as an orthopedic surgeon & he wouldn’t have blinked), asked a canned “interview” question (tell about a time something failed & what you did about it) & wanted to know what I do outside of work. & he was done—at 20 minutes.

So I started asking him some questions about the group, the products, the challenges, etc. Skippy has a worker bee’s view of all of this, not a manager’s. He asked me to send him some clips of collateral (obviously on instructions from someone). & that was it.

When I contacted recruiter basically all she wanted to know was, is he going to have me in for an interview. (She didn’t even know what their timeframe is; I had to tell her.) Well—she’d have to ask him that. I’ve given up trying to read interviews.

I’ve heard nothing since Thursday. Skippy said they wanted to have this person in place by 3 January, but that’s not going to happen, given the holidays.

I saw the same gig posted on Saturday by another job shop—I don’t know whether that means the client has nixed all the current candidates, or whether that JS is still trying to source some.

Something did occur to me—Skippy told me that he’s a native to this area & only left to go to college. It’s possible that his father is a VP somewhere in Symantec & that he is indeed managing a group. But if so, that’s not going to end well.

At any rate—either the recruiting chick will call about an on-site interview or I’ll never hear from her again. Not sure which is the better option.

Festive San José

I got turfed out of the church kitchen on Saturday; too many people trying to get in school or court-ordered community service hours before the end of the year. So, unable to make lunch for the homeless, I walked over to Plaza César Chávez because San José, “the [self-styled] Capital of the Silicon Valley”, puts on “Christmas in the Park”, & I had to see it.

Yes, in the Capital of the Silicon Valley, in the Capital State of Political Correctness, they have Christmas in the Park. Not holidays, not winter solstice, Christmas.

Viz.:

& the presentation is all Christmas, all the time. Not a whiff of a menorah, no Kwanzaa colors. Just Christmas trees & displays of Santa’s workshops. The trees are decorated by local groups: scout troops, businesses, civic associations.

It’s definitely California & Silicon Valley, though. Note the CDs on the tree on the left above, & the recycled water bottles on the tree below.

The displays look like they’ve been recycled, too, year after year. Here’s one with a “Countdown to Christmas”:

Only I was there on the 17th, & the Christmas-o-meter appears stuck on 8.

The whole thing is relentlessly secular—just trees, Santas & elves. Even the very loud music piped throughout made no mention of wise men or mangers.

But it’s definitely California. Here’s what greets visitors at every entrance:

God bless us, every one

Filed under the heading of “America, goniff”, it turns out there’s a Klingon stage version of A Christmas Carol.

Well, if there’s pretty much every other kind of Christmas Carol (& there is), why not?

But am I the only one who thinks it’s odd that the pro from Dover is a Klingon-language expert from…Kentucky?